Beyond the Veil
by GoddessofSnark
Summary: Hermione has a dark, speical power, who is the mysterious woman that helps her unlock it, and how does she know Snape? Read on to find out, eventual HGSS.
1. Prolouge

A/N I KNOW I have to finish Never Forget, but this plot bunny bit down and wouldn't let go! I can't stop writing it-I've written out up to chapter 20, and I just have to type them up and post them, and by that time, I'll be done with the fic, so this one is guaranteed to be finished, and done, and complete, it's not going to be lost to the black hole that most of my fics disappear down...I will finish this one, I swear! It will eventually by HG/SS, but that's not going to come in to play for a bit, after all, I have to set up the plot first...enjoy!

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A quiet "pop" interrupted the stillness of the early morning, and a figure emerged from the pale predawn light. She shook her long black hair that was streaked with an elegant silver out of her narrow face, and behind her ears. Cutting a path through the thick forest, she peered out from the branches to catch the faintest glimpse of the majestic stone castle, a dark mass, bathed ever so slightly with the pale pink of sunrise.

She reached the magnificent oaken doors, and slid through them, after running a hand against the coarse grain, finding it to be exactly as she remembered it to be. She left them partially open, knowing full well that someone was following her, shadowing her, and she knew exactly who it was. He was trying as hard as he could to be stealthy secretive, and anyone else would have never know he was there, but she did. Years of finely tuning her sense had alerted her to his presence.

She reached the large stone gargoyle that marked the end of her journey, and stood at it for a minute, reflecting, and running a hand across the smooth part along the crest of it's head. She had remembered the way to this place far too well; she had not been here in many years. The last time that she had been inside these walls had been for her younger brothers graduation, a little under twenty years previously. Yet, she could still remember everything about the magnificent place.

She saw her watcher emerge from the shadows and walk up to her, his head held high, giving her the image of refined arrogance, something she had never seen in him before. "The password is gummy bears" he said in a practiced tone, giving away nothing, but she could hear the fight he was having with his emotions in his voice. He was fighting not to do anything to her, even though she knew he had every reason to.

"Thank you, Severus" She said quietly, staring him in the eye, her voice every bit as silky and velvetine as his was. "Although a hello would have been nice" She saw the corner of his mouth twitch upwards into the ghost of a smirk, as he turned sharply on his heel to leave. She muttered the password and started up the spiraling staircase that came down to meet her. She watched him leave from the curl in the stairs, and smiled when he turned back to her.

"Hello, Sabriel," he said, and with a swish of his robes, he disappeared around the corner, leaving her to ascened the rest of the stairs, where her host was no doubt already waiting for her.


	2. Does the Walker Chose the Path?

A/N, I apologize on taking so long to type this up, and post it, but real life kinda got in the way-namely by beta being stranded without power until this afternoon. Thankfully, her house wasn't damaged by Ivan...Anyway, I'm going to just say that I don't own Snape or Hermione, and Sabriel is the bastard child of a character from another series and an OC that I have-although I do suggest you read the book of the same name, by Garth Nix, this isn't a crossover.

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Hermione granger woke up to the sound of loud purring in her ear. Smiling, she absently scratched the large orange bandy-legged tabby that had taken up residence next to her on the bed behind its ears. She sat up and stretched, looking at the clock on the small night table. It was just after eight, a fine time as any to get up on a lazy Sunday morning. She was normally up at the crack of dawn, but weekends gave her the luxury of sleeping in. She crossed the private room she got with being head girl and opened her dresser, yanking on a pair of jeans and a jumper.

Her typical morning ritual was rudely interrupted a few minutes later by a loud rap on her door. She opened it, fully expecting to see Harry or Ron standing there, ready to drag her down to breakfast, but instead was faced by a woman she had never seen before. "Hermione Granger?" The woman questioned, and Hermione nodded. "My name is Sabriel, Dumbledore told me that you'd be here." She said, looking around the room, as Hermione stepped back to let her in. "Glad to see it hasn't changed much." Hermione looked at her oddly after that comment.

"You were a head girl?" She inquired.

"Long long ago, yes. But the room's still the same, only thing that's change are the colors. Then again, I doubt green and silver do much for Gryffindors. I honestly want to kill Godric sometimes for the garish colors that he picked for his house. At least our house has colors that compliment each other." The woman gave a faint smile that softened her harsh looks slightly.

She looked vaguely familiar to Hermione. The woman had long, somewhat lank black hair, streaked with silver, that reached the small of her back, and was held back by a loose hairclip at the nape of her neck. The small smile that had played across her thin lips a minute ago had faded quickly, and the stern look that she wore made her seem all the more familiar to Hermione. Sabriel looked down at Hermione from the top of her large, slightly hooked nose and spoke. "You wouldn't happen to have any tea, would you? I got here a few hours ago, and still am not fully awake."

"It's no problem at all." She said, and called for Dobby.

"The house elves here do make the most fabulous earl grey." Hermione nodded her agreement, and a minute later, Dobby appeared, two cups of tea on a tray in front of him.

"Mistress Sabriel, Master Dumbledore is wanting you to visit your brother. He says you can talks some sense into Professor Snape ma'am" Hermione felt her eyebrows raise at Dobby's comment.

"Say, Dobby, aren't you a Malfoy elf? I remember you being there the last time I stopped by to visit Narcissa."

"Not anymore Miss. The great Harry Potter freed me. I nows work for Dumbledore. And-" Dobby paused and dropped his voice to a low whisper, "I nows get paid, and has vacations miss." Sabriel laughed outright, a harsh sounding, barking laugh.

"Sick days and pay for the elves? What's gotten into the old coot now?" Sabriel said as Dobby disappeared.

"I suggested it." Hermione said quietly, before changing the subject. "Are you related to Professor Snape?" She questioned.

"Yes, unfortunately. I happen to be his sister." Her lips quirked upwards again, this time into a smirk that didn't quite reach her eyes, and lasted for all of a few seconds. "But he is not the reason for my visit, even if Dumbledore wants me to find out where the hell he went wrong for the umpteenth time. You, however, are the reason for my visit, or rather something that lurks in your powers." Sabriel's voice had dropped a bit and now sounded rather grave.

"And what is it that lurks in my powers?" She questioned, ever curious to know what drew Snape's sister of all people to visit her in Hogwarts early on a Sunday morning.

"Graduation is close, is it not?" Sabriel questioned, seemingly out of the blue.

"Three weeks." Hermione stated. She wanted to know desperately what this woman was doing here, what Sabriel knew about her that she didn't know about her self. She had no sooner opened her mouth to edge the conversation back on topic when Sabriel spoke again.

"Miss Granger, there lurks in you a raw power, one that very few possess. Tell me, where you present when Sirius Black died?"

"Yes, well, I was there, but I had been knocked out."

"Oh, that complicates things a bit." The elder woman said, taking a sip of her tea as she fought to come up with another way to explain things.

"What do you mean, what does this have to do with Sirius?"

"Did you feel him die?"

"What do you mean?" Hermione questioned. She was beginning to feel as if she was being led in circles, and she didn't like that feeling at all.

"Did you feel him die?" The old woman asked again. "Did you feel as if a bit of you disappeared?"

"It's just grief." She countered.

"Were you close to Black?"

"Not as much as Harry and Ron were, but-"

"Were you not the one who never quite trusted him?" Sabriel interrupted.

"I was being cautious."

"Yes, but you were never exceptionally close to the man, were you? You shouldn't have felt that much grief for him. You shouldn't have felt as if part of you were missing." Hermione was somewhat shocked, Sabriel had captured the feeling that she had very well.

"What was it then, if not grief?"

"The first sign of a latent power. You, Miss Granger are a necromancer."

"A what?"

"Break it down into Latin. Necro-death, Mancer-"

"I understand what it means, but I thought they were the stuff of twisted fairy tales."

"No, Miss Granger, they are real. And you happen to be one of the ones who can pass through the veil and come out alive."

"Beyond the what?"

"Veil. And I was told you're one of Hogwart's greatest minds. Tell me, did Potter tell you how Black died?"

"He was hit by a stunning spell from Bellatrix Lestrange, and fell through something," Hermione thought for a moment. "A portal, with a tattered veil over it."

"Very good. That door in the department of mysteries is the only permanent gateway into Death. And you have the power to walk through that door and come back fully alive, with not a scratch on you."

"I can go into death?" She was rather stunned by what the woman had to say.

"Yes, and you bring quite a bit of stuff back, people even." Hermione had the bad feeling that she was being baited, but she didn't care.

"I could bring Sirius back?"

"Not quite, there are limits, but in essence, yes, you could. It takes a fair bit of training, and I did not come to teach you everything in one morning. I'm merely here to inform you of your powers, the teaching comes later."

"When?" She asked ever eager.

"After you graduate. I will be teaching you the ways of the necromancer, I will meet you here the Saturday after graduation, you have one week to visit your family, your friends, whatever you want to do, and then you will be under my tutelage."

"What if I don't want this?"

"Then it would do you well to remember a quote that a wise man once told me, it's more of a question than a quote, but it serves it's purpose. Tell me, Miss Granger, does the walker chose the path, or the path the walker?" With that, Sabriel removed a book from her cloak, unshrinking it as she moved, and tossed it onto the seat next to Hermione. "Here, I expect you to have read this thoroughly by the time I meet you here. You'll catch the Hogwarts Express that Saturday morning, it'll leave at eight AM sharp, so don't be late. I'll see you in a month, now I believe I have been ordered to talk to my brother. Goodbye Miss Granger." With that, Sabriel swept out of the room, her robes billowing behind her in very much the same way her brother's did, leaving Hermione to stare at the door, meditating on what had just happened.


	3. The Leaving Feast

Time has a funny way of speeding up when you wish that it would slow down, as Hermione quickly realized. The three weeks until graduation seemed to breeze by, leaving her lost in the tangle of her own thoughts and the festivities that came with their ever approaching last day. NEWTS were done, the results would be coming soon, and almost everyone had picked out a career path. Almost everyone except for her. Finally, it was with a heavy heart that she found herself sitting at the Gryffindor table for the last time at the leaving feast.

"So 'Mione, make up your mind yet?" She had chosen not to tell Harry and Ron all the details of Sabriel's visit. The only thing she had revealed to her friends was that she had some kind of special power, and that she could be entering into special training for her power.

"Not yet Ron." She admitted truthfully. She could chose not to come back, she could just not show up, Sabriel hadn't given her a choice, but she doubted that the old witch would forcefully come and drag her off to be trained. She had the strange feeling that whatever exactly her power was, it could be very bad indeed.

"Who'd have thunk it? Our resident bushy-haired know-it-all doesn't know what she wants to do! I always thought you've had your future planned since you popped out of your mum!" Hermione gave Ron a playful smack at his rather crude way of putting things.

"If it makes you feel any better Hermione, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about Auror training too. But I want to don't want to sit on my ass doing nothing while Voldemort gains power." She gave a small smile at Harry before turning her attention back to the food, struggling with the decision she'd have to make.

She'd never backed down from a challenge in her life ever. But then again, she'd also never had to make a decision that weighed on her like this one was. The book that Sabriel had given her did very little to calm her fears, if anything it increased them. Her Gryffindor moralities were telling her that to follow the path that Sabriel had presented her with would be very bad, but at the same time, her Gryffindor stubbornness was telling her not to back down.

She turned her thoughts away from the decision that she knew she'd have to make and back to the feast. She had a week to make up her mind, didn't she? She had a full seven days to decide things. She launched herself back into to the conversation, interjecting her thoughts on everything and anything the rest of Gryffindor table brought up, from the last quidditch match played to who had changed much over the past seven years, that award going to Neville Longbottom. She would be damned if she didn't make the most of her last night at Hogwarts.

After everyone had eaten, and everyone but the seventh years had left, the four house tables were banished to the sides of the great hall, and a small stage was conjured in place of the head table. All of the graduating class of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry looked around appreciatively, obviously enjoying the changes that the Great Hall was going through, to accommodate the graduation dance. It was one of the traditions that everyone in the school looked forward to, once they found out about it.

One of the house tables was suddenly covered in deserts and drinks, and music floated towards them from the stage. The Weird Sisters had come to play for the feast, and everyone had either made their way to the center of the hall to dance, or for those shyer folks, to the desert table to sit with a glass of punch and pray for someone to ask you to dance. Hermione was one of the ones who had chosen to sit off to the side, lost in reverie about the place she had grown to think of as home for the past seven years.

Until she felt his gaze upon her. She looked up from the bottom of her glass to find dark obsidian eyes fixed on her. She knew those eyes all to well, she had seen that same glare too many times before in potions class, it was the glare of the feared Professor Snape, when he was not happy. But the look on his face was not one of fury; rather it was blank and unreadable. When he caught her gaze, he gave her a curt nod, never breaking eye contact. She instead turned and finished her punch, deciding to take the initiative and ask some of the boys to dance herself.

She started with Neville, and slowly but surely worked her way through half the boys-no men now, she chided herself, in the room, she excused herself. She walked first towards the bathrooms, before she easily changed directions and found herself sitting on the large staircase that marked the main entrance to the majestic castle. She sat on the cool stone steps, her head against one wall, enjoying the beautiful view of the lake for the last time. Somehow, though, she had the nagging feeling that she would see it again.

The creaking of the large oak doors behind her made her jump out of her daydreams. She looked up to see the same feared potions professor that had been staring at her intently now standing in the threshold of the castle. "Miss Granger," He purred, "Why are you not inside, enjoying the celebration like the rest of your classmates?"

"Just wanted a breath of fresh air." He nodded, and to her surprise, sat down as well, his back against the other wall, long legs stretched out in front of him.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, both of them enjoying the gorgeous view of the grounds, lush with summery bliss. It was Snape who finally broke the silence. "Sabriel has asked me to remind you to think about whether you choose your own path or not. I'll warn you now though, Sabriel can be difficult at best, and I'm sure no one in their right mind would think less of you for not going with her."

"Would you think less of me?" She questioned quietly.

"I've had the misfortune of dealing with my sister. I would question the sorting hat's choice to put you in Gryffindor over Ravenclaw, but I would not think less of you for deciding to escape with your sanity, if not your life." It was then that her mind was made up. "Now Miss Granger, run back to your friends inside before I'm forced to take house points. It's not to late to lose the cup you know." He said with a smirk, and her mouth twitched into a smile as well.

"Goodbye professor."

"I trust I'll be seeing you again." He said simply. She got up, and carefully stepped over his outstretched legs to head back into the party, leaving him staring at the lake.


End file.
